


Long and Winding Road

by ponderinfrustration



Series: Buckaroo Fringe [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Western, Angst, Basically the Return of Sherlock Holmes, Feelings, Flashbacks, Gen, References to Drug Use, References to Torture, references to a lot of stuff in general, references to animal slaughter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-17
Updated: 2015-01-09
Packaged: 2018-03-01 20:19:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 13,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2786351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ponderinfrustration/pseuds/ponderinfrustration
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arizona, 1885</p><p>In one night, the life John Watson has managed to adjust to is shattered. And all it takes is a knock on the door.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. San Pedro, June 1885

The night is quiet, miners busy at their claims, ranchers gone with cattle to Prescott in search of a railhead. Only gamblers and those passing through left in town and that's more than enough for trouble, should there be any. John doubts that there will, the night doesn't have that quality to it. The fire in the grate warms the living room, burning away the vestiges of cold that settle when the sun goes down, even this far south.

Ordinarily, John would be in the saloon, gambling and drinking beer, in search of company though not too focussed on getting it. Nights like those serve as a distraction for him more than anything else. But this is a whisky night, a night for contemplation and musing, solitary comfort. Being around people can only do so much with these affairs. In truth, he doesn’t think of much of anything, simply watches the fire, keeps it fed, and lets his mind wander, settling on subjects at will. It doesn’t fill the hollowness, doesn’t take the edge off, but he knows he isn’t up to much tonight.

He sighs, and sinks deeper into his chair, the peace of the evening a change from the last few nights he’s had with barroom brawls and riding accidents. Mike was never particularly capable at dealing with that sort of emergency, much more comfortable with illness than injury, and Molly is more than capable with births (as well as deaths, an interesting contrast of hers). Between the three of them, things tend to work out pretty well in the town. And so for John tonight is – more than likely – a welcome night of rest.

He could read. A pile of journals for his perusal have gathered on the desk in his office, left aside for another time when he feels more up to it. He could write up his notes, organise the files better. None of that appears to him, his deep chair far too comfortable, anything resembling work unappealing. Another swallow of whisky, and if he concentrates just so he can feel it seeping through his blood, warming him from the inside, fumes seeming to carry into his chest.

The quiet of the evening is shattered by a knock to the door. Mrs Hudson is away, visiting her sister in Corpus Christi, so it falls to John to deal with these unexpected guests. (It would likely fall to him anyway, considering that nobody usually visits this late unless there’s some need for his experience, but it certainly doesn’t feel like that to him in this moment.) Groaning, he sets the whisky glass down, stretching as he stands, back cracking.

John crosses the room, one step at a time, each muscle loosening out as he walks. Reaching the door, he looks out the peephole but it's too dark to see. He's of half a mind to return to his chair. Maybe it was only some drunken fools trying to catch him out. If it were an emergency, surely they would have knocked again. He almost manages to convince himself of that, but decides to open the door anyway and to hell with them.

He’s greeted by the sight of two men on the doorstep, one supporting the other, faces in darkness though the taller of the two is clearly only semi-conscious, if even that much. John steps back and they stumble in, though really one carries the other.

“What happened?” John asks, eyes passing over the two of them. Blood has seeped through the bandages wrapped around the taller man’s torso, peeking out from under his shirt. But the blood is dry, so these aren’t new wounds. His heart sinks to see them, feeling the chance of successfully treating him diminish by the moment. The man’s wrists are bandaged too, and there are scratches littering his face.

“It’s a long story, Doctor Watson.” A wave of nausea washes over John at that voice, that undeniably _female_ voice (unheard around these parts for over two years), and he looks now at the shorter of the two, a woman in trousers and a man’s shirt which is clearly too big for her, hence his initial impression of her being a man. Even with the hat shading her face, he sees the sparkle of those eyes, the defined facial features standing out with the light of the room.

“Irene?”

“We have time for the reminiscing later, don’t you think?” The worry, a half-hidden undercurrent, in her voice jolts John back to the present, to the reality of what is in front of him.

 “Yes. Yes, of course. Let me help you. My consulting room is just down the hall.” He wraps his arm around the man’s waist, taking most of his weight so Irene doesn’t have to carry it. (Though, in fairness, there isn’t much weight to bear. The man is little more than skin and bone as it is.) “Would you mind telling me at least who I’m treating?”

“Oh, I think you know that. You just haven’t realised it yet.”

John pushes that riddle out of his mind, guiding Irene down the hall. The bed that John keeps in his consulting room for emergency surgery is thankfully tidy for once.

The man groans, trying to pull away. “No. No more.” His voice is rough, low and raw, and stirs an ache in John’s chest with its familiarity.

They lay him down on the bed, and John takes his hat off, all the better to see the face, though he’s not certain if he really wants to or not (of course he wants to. But that voice’s owner is two years dead so how can he be in this room now?). “Sherlock. Oh, God.” It’s all he can do not to vomit, sweat breaking out across his forehead, and eyes unable to look away from that face creased with pain, trying futilely to find the deception which he knows must be there. It has to be there. “He died out there how –“

Irene grabs John’s arms, forcing him at last to tear his gaze away from Sherlock, eyes starry with horror and fear. “No. He’s not dead. And he’s not going to die now, not after all I did to bring him back here.”

“But how?”

“That doesn’t matter right now, does it?”

 


	2. New York, June 1883

She still can’t believe that he’s here, that he managed to find her. It feels surreal, like a dream or the influence of very good cocaine. (And the Baron had been fond of very good cocaine, though she was only allowed it once.) He’s said very little since getting her out, instead spending the night poring over plans and notes, refusing to sleep though she offered to give him the one bed in the room. She’d forgotten that he does that.

She lies in bed now that morning has come, pretending to still be asleep, and instead watches him pace, back and forth across the small room. He’s changed in the two months since she saw him in San Pedro, hair grown longer and a wildness to his eyes that wasn’t there before. Not to mention the healing cut on his cheek, and his delicacy with his left arm. He hasn’t said yet how he got all banged up, or where the Doctor is, and she doubts if he’s going to say too much on the subject should she ask him.

“I know you’re awake, Miss Adler,” he says, stopping at the window and looking out across the city. “Your breathing pattern changed some time ago. Don’t try to fool me.”

“What brings you here?” she asks, giving up the pretence and sitting up in the bed, conscious of her bruises though he doesn’t turn around.

“I thought that was clear enough. The Baron had to be removed.”

He’s lying. She can read it in him, in the tenseness of his shoulders and how straight he stands. But she doesn’t correct him on it, instead leaves it aside for another time.

“So what now, Mister Holmes?”

He doesn’t answer, but she didn’t really think that he would.

* * *

It’s a week before Sherlock says anything of importance to her, and Irene finds herself wondering regularly why it is that he’s waiting around so long without taking any sort of action. It’s against his nature to do nothing and let his mind stagnate, but he does it anyway. And so they stay in that dingy one-bed room, him sleeping in a chair when he does sleep, no matter how many times she offers to switch places with him.

“We’re leaving for Richmond tomorrow,” he opens without preamble one evening, sitting on the edge of the bed and going through a sheaf of papers. “There’s a train that will take us there. I considered a stage. Train’s faster though, and more reliable. And we need to get out of here fast.”

She stares at him for a long moment, before sitting beside him on the bed. “Why do we need to move fast?”

“They’ve realised that the Baron is dead. Which means they’ve also realised that you’re free, and so they’ll be coming after you. Richmond, on the other hand, is relatively safe and they won’t expect you to go anywhere other than back to Arizona.”

“Who are they?” she asks, though she strongly suspects that she knows who they are. Though why they would chase her when they’d decisively washed their hands of her by giving her over to the Baron is still a mystery.

He swallows and looks her in the eye, his flashing dangerously for a moment. “Moriarty’s men. They might suspect my involvement, but I doubt it. Mostly, they’re focussed on the last orders they were given, which as far as I’ve been able to ascertain amount to exterminating you should you try to escape. With Moriarty’s death –“

“Jim’s dead?” The words are sudden, unexpected, and she wonders where they came from. It’s not a surprise, not really. She’s been expecting this for quite some time. But it’s a shock, a strange jolt in her stomach to hear that it has finally come to pass, the gun pointing at her head knocked away.

“I thought you might have heard by now.” Sherlock’s voice is quiet, the words a murmuration. He shakes himself and looks away. “He committed suicide just over a month ago. Bullet to the head. Quick and easy. His network has survived so far, at least most of it has.  With the Baron gone too, that will help to weaken things. But there’s still a lot of work to be done.”

“I’d like to help, if I could.”

He purses his lips in distaste. “You’re not getting involved in this. It’s not your work.”

For Irene, it is an effort to remain calm in the face of his foolishness and refusal to see sense. “It’s not yours either. I can go undercover in ways that you can’t. We can work together on this and speed the process up. And you need someone to watch your back considering that you left your Doctor behind. How can I go back there knowing that you’re out here fighting that spider’s web? You know I can’t do that. So I’m staying whether, you like it or not.”

The colour drains from Sherlock’s face at the reference to John, and Irene takes a small amount of guilty pleasure in that. And she hopes that the finality in her voice filters through to his brain.

“I suppose I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” And his voice is resigned, a trace of annoyance making her smile. That’s the Sherlock Holmes she knows, impatient yet generally reasonable, so long as you supply him with all of the relevant facts.

“Well. You could pull out tonight and leave me behind. But you won’t do that.”

“What makes you so sure that I won’t do that?”

“You wouldn’t have come all of this way to save me if you were just going to abandon me. It’s not your style, Mister Holmes.”

  


	3. The First Night

Hours pass. Hours of cleaning and dressing wounds which should have been stitched days ago, and can’t be now because of the risk of sealing in infection. (There’s infection already, in spite of Irene’s best efforts, some of the cuts weeping.) There are burns, cuts, slashes left by a whip criss-crossed over Sherlock’s chest and stomach, terribly close to tearing the flesh off delicate ribs.

There’s little that John can do to make it any easier. It’s too late to stitch any of the wounds, the burns which litter Sherlock’s arms have blistered and burst, leaving them raw and exposed to the world. He splints the two broken fingers on Sherlock’s right hand, a tidier version of the job that Irene has already done. (And Irene had done excellent work, considering the task which she was given, the magnitude of his injuries and the little materials that they had.)

Under the influence of morphine, Sherlock sleeps soundly, almost peacefully. It’s a stark contrast to his thrashing when John was cleaning the gashes, carbolic acid burning delicate skin, yet necessary nonetheless. It helped that an acquaintance of Irene’s (John is presuming, having never met the man before) came in not long after they started, and was more than capable of holding Sherlock down while John worked.

Afterwards, the three sit by the bedside, watching, though none know what for, and hoping more than a little bit that he’ll be all right, though none are feeling too hopeful after the evening they’ve had. John pours a glass of whisky for Irene’s friend – Billy - and another for himself. Irene herself declines the whisky, instead holding a cup of coffee close to her chest.

“So,” John begins, unable to take his eyes off this apparition lying in bed, supposed to be long dead yet seemingly not, though halfway to the spirit world already in spite of that, “would either of you mind telling me exactly what happened?”

“Most of it, I think you’ll prefer hearing from him,” Irene says quietly, eyes cast down, unable to look at the doctor or at Sherlock. “Basically, he saved me from a desperate situation in New York about two years ago and we’ve been travelling together since, working on taking apart Moriarty’s network. The last strand of it was based down here, on the border with New Mexico. We were working out how best to tackle it when Sherlock was captured. Billy and I managed to track them to the canyons near Socorro. There was a fight and we got him out, but by then he was like this.”

“And when was that?” There’s a simmering anger beneath John’s voice which he forces down. There’ll be time enough for anger and thrashing out the affair later, when everything is settled and he’s had more time to think and to analyse it.

“’Bout four days ago, Doctor Watson,” Billy says. “We managed to ge’ a wagon, but lost it in the mountains, so we rode the rest of the way.”

“And what made you think that you had to bring him this far? Surely there were other doctors in towns along the route.”

Irene looks up, the mask slipping for a moment to reveal the very real pain and worry lurking beneath it. “He kept asking for you, when he was out of his head. And it was finished anyway so we thought that maybe it was best if we came all of the way. No other doctor could have done any more for him, not after we had to spend a night and a day hiding out there.”

John nods, reaching out and checking Sherlock’s pulse again, assuring himself that he’s really here, anything so as not to feel so helpless. He doesn’t speak. There are no words to sum up a situation such as this.

* * *

 

Irene’s eyes are scratchy, trying to slip closed with the force of her tiredness while she sits there. It must be two weeks since she properly slept, and now certainly isn’t the time for it, no matter how exhausted she feels, bone-weary and worn-out.

She lays her head down beside Sherlock’s and sighs, willing herself to stay awake. It won’t be the first night that she’s passed like this since they got him out of that hell-hole. He would have died if they hadn’t managed to intervene when they did, and as it is it’s coming mighty close. She knows the wounds are infected in spite of their best efforts though John hasn’t said anything about it. (He doesn’t need to, it’s etched in his face, the fear and worry combined to turn the faint lines he wears into crevasses.) In fact, John has said comparatively little on the subject since they arrived – his questions aside – and Irene suspects that he may be in shock at seeing his best friend – presumed dead – lying unconscious and injured in front of him. She was surprised enough that day that Sherlock found her in New York, and she’d known he was alive, never mind what Moriarty’s men had said before they handed her over to the Baron. So what must it be like for John, his friend apparently resurrected? No wonder he keeps checking Sherlock’s pulse. (Though, she reminds herself, that might be to ensure that the morphine hasn’t had too much of an adverse effect on it. His pulse was slowed to almost nothing the night he overdosed in Portland. It doesn’t matter that John wouldn’t know about that affair.)

“How long did they have him for?” John asks quietly, eventually, breaking the silence in the room.

“About four days, at the most,” Irene says softly, seeing that Wiggins is too dazed to say anything. Though why, she doesn’t know. There was no laudanum left for his use, the last of it given to Sherlock when he came around the night they rescued him. She still hears the groans . . .

Irene shakes her head, pulling herself back to the present. “It would have been faster,” she says, sliding her hand down the linens and entwining her fingers with Sherlock’s. “It would have been much faster, but we needed to get entrenched and devise a plan first.” Then a murmur, soft enough that John almost doesn’t hear it, Irene’s eyes on her interlaced fingers, Sherlock’s so warm and still, the fever burning through his skin. “I wish it had been faster.”

 


	4. New York, October 1883

It is two months since they left New York, and Irene’s bruises have healed so that it’s almost as if she was never held prisoner by the Baron. (Almost. The scars still linger in her mind, coming back to haunt her at night when Sherlock is nowhere nearby, instead busy with the tearing apart of Moriarty’s empire.)

Those first six weeks they spend in Richmond, examining a series of art forgeries. Irene is amazed at first that Sherlock would condescend to look into something so seemingly boring. Then she realises that it’s connected to some of Jim’s minor affairs, and suddenly the whole thing makes a lot more sense to her.

They wrap it up, get the men involved arrested, and leave for Charlotte. Sherlock remains tight-lipped on everything, from why he didn’t tell John to what exactly he plans to do. Mostly, they don’t speak. Living as husband and wife in the public eye, and that is all. No closeness between them, no confidences exchanged. Irene finds herself wishing for him to at least confide in her, but frankly she doesn’t hold out too much hope for that happening.

When they make it to the hotel in Charlotte – which is large and opulent and ridiculously decorated so that it feels like stepping back to Versailles or something (and really, that was a waste of her time reading about Versailles, but it’s not as if there was anything else for her to do in Richmond with Sherlock being deep undercover) – Sherlock is so worn out that he sprawls on the large double bed that they’re going to share and falls right to sleep. Irene eases off his coat and unbuckles his belt as he sleeps, then pulls the sheets up to his chin and tucks him in. And it’s just an ordinary evening for the two of them on the run.

* * *

 

September of 1883 finds them in Denver, Sherlock masquerading as a gambler and Irene playing his companion whore. A thawing has come in the relationship between them, and he confides in her – one late night when he’s full of whisky and after a winning streak at poker– that he misses Arizona, misses John and Mrs Hudson and the cases which they had down there, when everything was more settled than it is now.

For the first time since this whole business began, she kisses him and pulls him close. In the morning, both pretend that it didn’t happen and that everything is perfectly normal. And Irene is relieved for that, because there’s a tangle of emotion in her chest which she hasn’t worked out yet, and she doesn’t want him deducing anything about it. Not now, and maybe not ever. (It is one of many secrets that she has kept and will keep from him, some bigger than others and this one of the biggest.)

They barely escape with their lives, and head back for New York, on the trail of the same gang which led them to Denver. But something has shifted now, something undefinable. There’s a gentleness that wasn’t there before, an extra glimpse of warmth beneath the cold façade. And that, really, is more than enough for her.

* * *

 

The night drags on, Sherlock still out on the town somewhere. He was supposed to be back once darkness fell, but no matter. More than likely he’s on a good trail and simply won’t give it up until he’s finished. Ten. Eleven. Midnight. Still so sign of him, no idea where he might be, and it’s now that Irene feels worry creeping in. It’s unlike him to stay out past when he said he’d be back (well, not really. He often did it in San Pedro and it drove John mad, but it’s unusual in these times, in this instance. He’s too careful all of the time to risk something going wrong.)

He might be hurt. He might be dying in an alley somewhere, or captured. He might be already dead.

That thought suffices to spur Irene into action. She said she’d watch his back, but how can she do that here in a hotel room, safe from the dangers of the city while he isn’t? No. It won’t do.

She takes one of Sherlock’s shirts and pulls it on, tucking the end of it into the trousers which she appropriates and tightens a belt around her thin waist. He’s thin too, far too thin, no doubt about that, but his clothes are too big for her, and she rolls up the cuffs, tugging one of his coats on over the shirt and buttoning it to her throat. Into a pocket she puts one his knives, and his pistol which he’d left behind. (It was supposed to be a reconnaissance mission more than anything that he’d left on, so why isn’t he back by now?) A dig around their bags reveals a bowler hat, which she puts on over her hair, piling it all up onto her head to keep it out of the way. Taking her eye make-up, she rubs some of it onto her chin and up around her cheeks, so that under a cursory glance it looks like she needs to shave. It’s not a great disguise, and frankly, she could do much better, but there isn’t time now to tidy it. Not when Sherlock is out there somewhere.

Irene slips out the side door and into the street. Where to start? Try finding Sherlock in New York. She did it often enough in her younger years, but even then it was difficult, him knowing all of the back alleys and hidden streets from hours on hours of walking the city.

Two hours of walking and searching, yet still no sign of him. She’s almost about to give up (and where is she in the city? Miles and miles away from where she started, all looped around and tangled up, though she’s sure that she can get back to the hotel), when her ears catch a groan. The alley is dark, no light, and she doesn’t have a lamp, only a box of matches in one pocket. She takes a match and strikes it, eyes falling on a slumped figure, back to the wall, dark curls hiding his face. She recognises the clothes that Sherlock left in that morning, and a wave of nausea crashes over her. The match burns out, and Irene throws it to the ground, already running over the cobblestones.

She reaches him in a moment, hands lifting his head so that she can see his face. Even in the darkness his cheekbones stand out, purple bruise blooming under his left eye, face streaked with blood from a head wound. She eases his head back down, chin resting on his chest, and feels over his upper body for injuries. Ends of ribs grind beneath her palms, clearly broken – or at least cracked - and he groans, eyes flickering but not opening.

“Sherlock. Sherlock, wake up.” She manages to keep the panic out of her voice, forces it down deep so that it doesn’t register. “Sherlock.”  She takes him by the shoulders and shakes him, his head lolling. A groan comes from his throat, and he makes a weak effort to bat her away, not enough strength in his hands to be effective. “Come on, Sherlock. Just wake up.”

He swallows, throat working convulsively, and lays his head back against the wall, still without opening his eyes. “Irene?” His voice is hoarse, cracked, and he coughs hard, a rasping sound coming from his chest with the effort of it.

“It’s me, Sherlock.” She squeezes his hand, and for once he doesn’t pull away, eyes finally fluttering open, and even in the darkness she can see how dazed he is.

“Good. Can’t . . . can’t walk. I tried, but –“ He’s cut off by another coughing fit, and this time he rubs his chest with the palm of his hand, a grimace etched into his face. “One of them stabbed my leg,” he forces out in between breaths.

Only know does Irene notice that she’s kneeling in a pool of – mostly dry – blood. She runs her hand along his left leg, the closest to her, and finds the stab wound above the knee, the blood darkening his trousers so that it’s impossible to see. “We need to get you to a doctor.” And if there’s a shake in her voice, then Sherlock pretends not to hear it.

“Too late for that,” he murmurs, eyes half-closed again. “Too late to stitch it. Just help me back to the hotel. Please.”

 


	5. Silent Vigil

John watches as Irene drifts off against her best efforts, eyes slipping closed after hours of valiant battle. As soon as he suspects that she’s asleep, he picks up a blanket and puts it around her shoulders. She doesn’t stir, head still lying beside Sherlock’s and hand holding his. Her exhaustion is plain to see, evident in her very behaviour. The Irene that John knew before would never allow herself to fall asleep in front of anyone, deeming it a sign of weakness, and she’d never wear such tattered men’s clothes. The effects of two years away are written on every inch of her.

Wiggins, as Irene has called him, sits deep in his own chair and tips his head back, arms folded and legs stretched out in front of him. Perhaps he’s not one of Irene’s clients, but there’s something about him that John can’t quite put his finger on, a stirring in his gut that tells him there’s something that he’s missing here. Regardless, Wiggins dozes off too before long, leaving John to maintain the quiet vigil.

As for Sherlock. To say that he was thrown to see Sherlock alive is an understatement. Two years of thinking him dead only to discover that he’s not only alive, but after spending that time off having various adventures before getting tortured, well, it’s a shock to say the least. And the possibility of losing him again makes John nauseous, no matter that he’s more than a little annoyed by the whole affair. Only Sherlock would disappear for two years, no word to everyone, and then reappear as if no time had passed at all. Granted, he didn’t re-appear of his own accord, but still. Two years is a terribly long time to sustain such a lie.

For now, though, John sets the anger aside. The important thing – indeed, the terribly difficult thing – is keeping Sherlock alive. John’s never seen him so thin and frail. Knowing him, he wouldn’t have been eating or resting much even before he was captured, and likely wouldn’t have been fed too well while they were torturing him. His fragility is serving now to compound his injuries, which are really bad enough already, and that’s without the infection which has complicated everything. (It’s an all-consuming helplessness, the knowledge that there is absolutely nothing more that he can do.)

As if he knows what John is thinking about, Sherlock moans, lips hardly parted, eyes flickering rapidly beneath the lips. John takes his other hand, the one Irene isn’t holding, and squeezes his fingers tight, careful so as not to disturb the broken ones.

“John.” The word is mumbled, hoarse, but recognisable, and it causes a jolt in John’s stomach. Sherlock’s out of his head with pain, can’t possibly know what he’s after saying, but that doesn’t matter. None of it matters, and yet it does, so much. “Hurts . . . John.” His eyes half-open, vacant and glazed with his rising fever (and, yes, his hand is warmer than it should be).

“Sshh, Sherlock. It’s all right. You’ll be all right.” John voice cracks as he says it, for the first time his mind properly entertaining the possibility that it very much might not be all right. Torture injuries and a raging infection? If Sherlock ends up as good as all right it will be miraculous enough. “Just sleep.”

Sherlock’s eyes are unfocused, unseeing, roving across the room, his good hand with Irene twitching, and he whimpers again, low and pathetic. It’s too soon for another dose of morphine, and short of changing bandages unnecessarily there’s nothing more to be done for another few hours. If John could lay hands on the men that did this . . .

He can’t, anyway. Irene and Wiggins will have dealt with them. All that he can do is hope that it was well enough that they won’t be coming back, and try to keep Sherlock as comfortable as possible, whether he lives or dies.

There’s no element of doubt this time. If he dies here, in this room, then he really dies and there’s no coming back, only trying to go forward. Two years of trying to go forward haven’t been as successful as they should, and this time it would be worse. This time there would be no early hope of a return, no possibility of it. Outcomes clear cut, no room for variation. Life or death. And no way of knowing which it will be until the time comes. It wouldn’t be the first time that an apparently favourable outcome was lost thanks to a weakened heart. (And there’s no doubt that Sherlock’s heart has been weakened by the events of the last few weeks. It’s too soon to tell whether or not it has been fatally so.)

John lets his fingers drift to Sherlock’s wrist, fingers digging into the pulse point. It’s too fast and too weak, no reassurance coming from there. And yet the fact that there is a pulse is so miraculous that John can’t help but smile, just slightly. Perhaps this time the detective’s legendary stubbornness will prove worthwhile, will keep that heart beating.

Irene and Wiggins sleep on. And Sherlock, too, settles before long, too weak for semi-consciousness, no matter the absence of lucidity.

  


	6. New York, October to December, 1883

Morning finds Sherlock sleeping off a dose of laudanum, his wounds cleaned and chest bound to stop the ribs shifting. Irene is a little proud that she managed it all herself, helped by a bell boy who’d brought some warm water, and the bottle of carbolic acid that Sherlock insists on carrying around in his suitcase for just such an eventuality. She doesn’t sleep, can’t bring herself to sleep, so instead she sits on the edge of the bed and cards her fingers through his hair, gentle so as not to bother his head wound. He’d never tolerate it if he were awake, but that point is moot now. She just hopes that there won’t be any complications from the broken ribs, and no infection in the leg.

The leg wound wasn’t that deep, once she’d cleaned it up. But it was still deep enough to have bled all over the place, and started bleeding again when she was cleaning it. Now, there’s a wad of iodine gauze pressed to it with bandages. The iodine was her own idea, she’s pleased to say, the result of a fruitful conversation that she once had with a salesman in Austin. (It helped that he’d paid well for her services.) And if it helps to prevent an infection now, then all the better.

* * *

 

“I was jumped,” he says softly, hours later, as she changes the dressing on his leg. “Six men, associated with the group we’ve been following. I was on the way back here and it was just getting dark. I managed to leave three of them unconscious thanks to a series of Japanese wrestling moves. Suspect I might have gotten one of them with his own knife.” He sighs, and shifts slightly in the bed, trying to take pressure off his ribs. “I passed out not long afterwards, and when I woke it was late and the place had been cleared out. Tried to move, but the leg was too bad.” He won’t say any more on the subject, no matter how she tries to draw him, and soon falls asleep under the influence of laudanum. She judges that that’s probably for the best.

* * *

 

Two days later, when Sherlock’s reasonably back to normal – as normal as he can be when he’s still bandaged up and bored out of his mind in between doses of laudanum – he sends Irene to visit the police office with a letter detailing everything he’s worked out. She delivers it in disguise as a man, so as it can’t be traced back to them should the group they’ve been following try to work out who is behind it.

The next day, they read in the newspaper about the arrest of the gang, and for the first time in a terribly long time – maybe even the first time since this whole thing started – Sherlock smiles.

“We’re making some progress at last.”

* * *

 

Together, they live out of that hotel for weeks while Sherlock’s injuries heal. When the winter storms blow in they get held a little longer than expected. Sherlock puts the time into some minor investigations into Moriarty’s network, sending telegrams to contacts in Maine and Wyoming and California and elsewhere. Irene keeps his notes compiled, and berates him for not eating or sleeping, constantly warning that his ribs won’t recover if he runs himself so ragged.

It’s after Thanksgiving when Mycroft appears, walking into the hotel in a whirl of sleety snow, hair salted with it, coat white with melting flakes. Irene goes downstairs, talking to some of the ladies she’s made the acquaintance of while the brothers consult. It’s the first time she wonders what people in Arizona think happened to Sherlock – most of them probably take it for granted that he died out in the canyons, but surely some of them don’t. Surely some of them realise that if there’s no corpse, then perhaps that body is still living, still has breath in its lungs and a beating heart, especially where Sherlock is concerned.

Sherlock comes to find her when Mycroft leaves, drawing her away from the ladies in order to go for a walk. And Sherlock never goes for a walk without reason, always has some greater purpose at work. She half expects him to hail a cab, but he doesn’t. Just keeps walking, the sleet stopping, melting around them.

“We’re going to Portland in a few days. Mycroft has given me details about what he suspects is an undercover slave-trading organisation. I promised to look into it while I’m in the Northeast.”

“And what is he doing in return?” She knows well that as far as the Holmes brothers are concerned, there’s always an exchange, a trade-off in duties and possibilities. And horrible though the idea of a slave-trading organisation is, there’s certainly more at play for Sherlock to be the one to investigate it. Nothing is ever simple where those two are concerned.

“Ensured that I wouldn’t have to go to Thanksgiving dinner with my parents. He tried to convince me to go, but that wasn’t happening. As far as they know, I’m deep in a case in Mexico. This is Mycroft’s little revenge.”


	7. Word Spread

Sherlock’s fever rises through the night, so that by morning he’s boiling to the touch. There isn’t much for John and Irene to do, except try to bring the temperature down with whatever methods are at their disposal, primarily cloths and lukewarm water. Sherlock doesn’t stir, eyes moving sluggishly beneath their lids, whole body limp and slack upon the bed. His pulse is racing and thready, breaths shallow and weak, wounds weeping worse than ever so that John has to change the dressings every few hours. It’s not enough, but frankly what else can they do? It’s a frustration which seems to permeate the very room, the powerlessness seeping into every thought and feeling. All anyone can really do is watch, and hope.

Wiggins, for his part, runs basic errands – wiring Mycroft, sending word to the Marshal, letting Stamford know that he’ll need to deal with any emergency that arises. John doesn’t tell him to wire Mrs Hudson, knowing that she’s likely on the stagecoach home by now and won’t get it. Whether or not Sherlock will still be alive when she arrives is a question which nobody can answer, though John wishes so badly that he could answer it, could promise that Sherlock will survive. But no matter how he wishes it or how hard he tries with all of his medical knowledge, he can’t keep life in a body by sheer will alone.

* * *

 

When word reaches US Marshal Greg Lestrade that Sherlock Holmes is alive and home, he drops the cigar he was holding on the desk. Then the rest of the sentence hits him, and he hears about infected wounds. It takes only the barest of moments to connect these wounds to Sherlock, and then he’s jumping out of his chair and running out of his office.

He doesn’t stop to knock on the door of Mrs Hudson’s place, instead throws it open, letting it bang behind him while he makes his way to John’s office.

“Should’ve known you’d come running, Greg,” John remarks without looking up from listening to Sherlock’s chest. And even with his head bent, Lestrade can see the grave look on the doctor’s face.

“What happened?” he asks, standing in the doorway. From here he can see enough that he’s a reluctant to get closer. The pallor of Sherlock’s face and the rawness of the wounds in his chest – uncovered now while John changes the dressings.

“You’d have to ask Miss Adler about that, and even then I wouldn’t hold out too much hope of her telling you. She’s being very vague on the subject.”

Only now does Greg see Irene Adler sitting by Sherlock’s bedside, holding his hand in hers, fingers intertwined. The tiredness is written all over her, in every line and in the very way she sits, and that’s partially the reason he never noticed her, it being so out of character.

“I see.” He feels awkward, almost achingly so, but decides to plough on anyway. “So what do you think?”

John sighs, swabbing one of the worse wounds with carbolic acid. Greg winces just looking at it, but Sherlock never notices, too deep in the midst of his fever to even register it.

“It’s too soon to tell. But I think he’ll have to be very lucky.” He looks at her, and notes the numbness in her face. “Go to bed, Irene. Just for a little while. I’ll get you if there’s any change.”

It snaps her out of her reverie, and she raises her eyes to look at John, shaking her head slightly. “No. I won’t leave him. Not now.” Her voice is hoarse, tears seeming to simmer just below the surface, and Greg is taken aback by how changed she seems. It cuts him to the quick to see her like this almost as much as it does to see Sherlock in such a state. He very much doubts if he ever saw such heartbroken emotion in her face pain, not even when her engagement to that Norton got broken off years ago.

It’s pointless to argue with her. She’s too worried to cave to logic, and that is what makes Greg realise that the chance of Sherlock pulling through is slim.

And suddenly the room seems so oppressive, so small and full at the same time. Sherlock’s lying there, possibly dying, and Irene - who is usually so cold and conniving - is broken, and John is worn down even though only a night has passed since Sherlock was brought home. It’s overwhelming, far too much and Greg feels nauseous even just thinking about it. Within the space of a half hour the world that he’s managed to adjust to over two years has been overthrown, tossed around and mixed up so that it’s hard to tell what is real and what isn’t, and how can he be sure that this isn’t just a horrendous nightmare? (But it isn’t, because it’s all far too real and makes far too much sense, because of course Sherlock would disappear and then re-appear torn open from torture. And surely it was torture. It’s in John’s eyes even though he hasn’t said so. There’s no need for him to say so. How else could something like this happen? Not in an ordinary fight, not really. And Irene wouldn’t look so guilty if it had been. She must know what happened and who’s responsible, but Greg can see that there’s no use in asking her now. It can wait until they know which way this is going to go.)

He needs some air. Needs to clear his head and re-orient himself to this world which has become unrecognisable from the one that he woke up to that morning.

“You’ll let me know, John, if there’s any change, won’t you?” As he asks it, he realises that it’s a stupid question because of course John will let him now. If Sherlock were conscious, he’d berate him for even thinking it. (And frankly, he could take the scolding this time, would revel in it.)

John nods, replacing some of the cloths at Sherlock’s throat with fresher ones, just out of the bowl of water. “Yes. Of course.”

 


	8. Portland, March 1884

The room is small, dingy, cold in these late nights, a draught seeming to come through the very walls. Of course the place is cold, Irene supposes, it’s March and that wind is blowing in sharp off the ocean, though their rooms face away from the waterfront. It doesn’t matter anyway. They won’t he here much longer.

She curls in tighter around Sherlock on the narrow bed they share, and presses a chaste kiss to his collarbone, showing above his night shirt. He doesn’t stir, sleeping soundly for the first time since they’ve come here, excepting the night last week when he pumped himself full of morphine. (She forces it from her mind, stroking the curls back from his face, unwilling to remember his shallow breathing and fluttering pulse through that long night.)

Sleep won’t come, no matter how she tries. The cold has seeped into her, and even now, pressed against Sherlock and huddled under the blankets, Irene can feel it in a ridge across the top of her back, the icy touch of the draught lingering like a ghost.

She sighs, rolling onto her back, hand sliding down Sherlock’s arm to grip his fingers. They twitch, and she squeezes back, willing them to still and for him not to wake up. He’s slept so little of late, always another problem on his mind between aphthous fever and the undercover slave trade they’ve come here to tear apart and the vestiges of Moriarty’s network which refuse to die. (She should have killed him, back when she had a chance and before this thing had spiralled. It had felt like a noose around her neck, which she thought she’d cast off when she’d come back east, only to be captured by Moriarty’s men and given to that Baron. It would have saved so much trouble, for everyone, and maybe they could be in Arizona now, away from these pyres which she hasn’t seen and only hears about in the murmurs of Sherlock’s disturbed dreams. Perhaps there could be more hope then.)

The first grey light of morning seeps slowly in around the edges of the thin curtains. Soon, she’ll have to wake Sherlock, to give him time to organise his thoughts before consulting with the local authorities on the subject of the slave trade. (Though really, it’s too difficult even for them and requires a higher power, perhaps the army, (shame that Mycroft has no real influence here, though surely he knows somebody who does. It was his idea that they come here, but she knows that Sherlock is loath to ask him for help in this), but she knows too that there’s time enough for that, and in the next day or two it will all be wrapped up, and on they’ll go to the next stage of the affair, whatever that may be.)

This was supposed to be quick, easy. Worm their way in, him as a farm worker and her as a whore, not associated with each other so that each can work out more information that way, through their own means, then get out again and move on to the next place. Then the cattle plague happened, and Sherlock got tangled up in it as well as the original case so that the two seemed to be intertwined though the only connection was the people involved in both and nothing more. Neither thought any of it would be connected to Moriarty, though of course it was and they should have seen that. A branch of the web so well hidden that Sherlock never even suspected its existence.

Lightly, Irene runs her fingers along Sherlock’s cheekbones, their usual porcelain colour driven away with work, instead wind-burned and tanned. Even in Arizona, the paleness was there, lost now in the midst of this chase and fight so that it almost seems a part of their disguise, alongside a faked marriage and rough-woven cheap clothes which neither of them would ever wear if they didn’t have to and could live as they wanted without the shadow of a criminal months-dead looming over them. Everything that they usually are has been robbed by this constant undercover war, veneers worn thin so that it always feels as if they’re breaking apart, falling to pieces inside and neither willing or able to articulate the words. Only a hollow look in tired eyes, and morphine puncture wounds in delicate skin, life seeming to slip away.

Irene slips further under the covers, and pulls Sherlock into her arms, holding him close, the heat of his sleeping body warming her. And as she drifts into sleep, for a moment she can delude herself that everything will be all right.


	9. The Second Night

It isn't long before a telegram comes back from Mycroft, which basically amounts to him having decided to come to San Pedro and see the situation for himself. Irene and John both decide that it's code for him being unable to say that he's worried about his brother.

"So did he know too?" John asks, eventually, studiously looking at Sherlock who's been quiet for the last half hour, finally seeming to be asleep.

"Mycroft?" Irene asks, knowing that that's who John is referring to, but wanting to be certain. There's far too much to be uncertain about these days without adding something as minor as that to it. John nods, prompting her to sigh. "Yes. He knew. He helped us out a few times with contacts and such."

“And did he know about the capture?”

She shakes her head. “No. Sherlock told us not to tell him if something went wrong, because he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it anyway. The political situation was too delicate and he couldn’t intervene. Sebastian Moran had manoeuvred himself too well, and the canyons were almost impenetrable unless you knew the area, which was why we got in touch with Wiggins. We couldn’t bring the army into it or they’d all have been slaughtered.”

* * *

 Greg Lestrade comes to sit with them when he closes up his office for the evening, Deputy Anderson equipped with orders to handle any problem which might arise. As far as he can determine, there’s no real change in Sherlock’s condition. He’s still pallid and feverish and restless, swathed in bandages and wounds weeping.

Irene, on the other hand, looks much better now than she did earlier. John seems to have managed to convince her to take a break, because her hair is washed and she’s dressed in clean, albeit worn, clothes. She’s still exhausted, hollow-faced and pale, shadows under her eyes, but John doesn’t press her to rest, instead focusses on Sherlock, constantly monitoring his heart and his breathing and his temperature, with occasional small doses of morphine to try and ease some of the pain.

He can’t believe it, if he’s honest, still can’t accept that this is actually happening – Irene Adler appearing after two years, Sherlock Holmes alive albeit half-dead after also disappearing for two years, John Watson worrying over both of them as if no time at all has passed. It’s a lot to take in, a lot of worry, a major upheaval, and the two whiskeys he had in the Comique to fortify himself before he came over here again haven’t helped.

What must have happened out there for them to be like this now? Irene so obviously attached to Sherlock and protective of him is something that Greg thought he’d never see, despite the allusions and half-suggestions that she had been known to make before she disappeared, allegedly to New York, but who rightly knew? And Sherlock, restless and delirious though he is thanks to his wounds seems soothed by her, as if her very presence is enough to calm him. Greg suspects that there are secrets there which they may never find out, regardless of how things might have changed in their relationship over the last two years.

And the injuries, to both of them. Irene is undeniably tender with her left arm, careful in how she moves it, not that she moves it often, and her forehead is scratched, as if she was clipped by something and managed to evade it just in time. (The thought comes to Greg that perhaps it was a bullet, and even now that seems a little extreme, but maybe, just maybe it’s a possibility.) And there has been far more done to Sherlock than great lines gouged into his chest and torso, his forehead bruised like his arms, and small, circular burns visible when John changes the bandages, wrists raw from ropes bound tight. Whatever they did to him seems almost beyond belief, and would be if Greg were not sitting here to see the evidence before his eyes. (He can imagine what Sherlock would say if he could hear his thoughts now – “Must be the only time you’ve properly extrapolated from the evidence, Lestrade”. The thought makes his lips twitch, because, God, it would be just like that fool to come out with something along those lines even if he was semi-conscious and drugged up to his eyeballs.)

* * *

 

Irene can see that the Marshal is sickened by what has happened, and she feels the same way but she can’t bring herself to try and offer any words of comfort. If she’s being honest with herself, she’s felt this way ever since they realised that Sherlock was missing, presumed captured, and searched everywhere that they could for him only to turn up no trace, bar one word scrawled in his hand-writing on a scrap of paper – Moran. That was enough for her and Billy to suspect what must have happened. Then and there they began their preparations for a rescue, though it took much longer to worm their way through the desolate, rocky country and pull him out from their clutches. Four days. Four days that stretched like a lifetime, when he could have died and they might never have found him. Four days of tracking and deducing in the hope that they might find the right place in time to save him. She doesn’t think that Moran knew exactly who he had, more she suspects that he took Sherlock for coming too close to him, and the torture was to reveal those tid-bits of information. Of course Sherlock would never give in, he would rather die first, that terrible stubbornness which she witnessed so many times throughout those two years coming out through him in spades.

More than once through that long second night Irene worries that he’s dying now, finally, after all they’ve been through. After the long days and longer nights, the battles and espionage and wounds bandaged in dark little rooms, each increasingly competent at treating the other. She worries that what they can do won’t be enough, won’t suffice to keep life in a body so battered and worn, and she knows that John worries about the same thing, because he won’t reassure her, won’t even try to reassure himself. The situation is too grave for such platitudes.

And if Sherlock dies now, dies when all of the work is done, then it will have been in vain. He was fighting to destroy Moriarty’s network, but more than that he was fighting to get home, back to Arizona and San Pedro and familiarity, though he never said it quite as bluntly as that, it has never been in his nature. What’s the point of bringing him home if he’s just going to die here, if the life is just going to slip from him now, at the end? Irene has no answer for that, but she doesn’t need one. The hope of taking him to John so that John can heal him is all that kept her going through those days and nights after the rescue. Without that, she can see the futility of the situation in everything, in every line of Sherlock’s slack body, in every blood-stained bandage and weeping wound, in John’s face every time that he presses his fingers to Sherlock’s pulse. The room is awash in futility.

This one is a night without sleep, for any of the watchers. A night for offering what comfort to a possibly dying man that they can, and none to each other.


	10. Boise, September 1884

Some nights, Irene wakes to find Sherlock pressed to her, his arms wrapped tight around her body. She’s always careful not to stir and wake him, because she knows that he’d take his arms away. Try as he might to pretend that he doesn’t need closeness, doesn’t crave human contact, she knows that the truth is otherwise and he just refuses to acknowledge it.

She aches to think that he could never see her the way she sees him. She can’t explain what it is, what causes the softness in her chest as far as he’s concerned – the gentleness, the tenderness, the protectiveness. But it’s there, and she can’t deny that even though she very much doubts that he sees it, otherwise he would have commented on the subject at some point throughout their long acquaintance (and by that she means ever since he saved her in New York in 1870 when the coach she’d stolen had gotten away on her. He just swept in, long coat billowing, and took control of the team, warning her to run before the police caught up.)

She’s resigned herself to the situation long ago, so on those nights when she wakes and they’re so close together, she pretends as if it’s never happened. Pretends as if it’s just an ordinary night and nothing special. And she settles back to sleep, knowing that nothing can ever come from this.

(It doesn’t make the aching pain any easier.)

* * *

 

The ball room is crowded and warm, filled with women in flashy dresses and men in their tailored suits. Irene doesn’t know most of these women in attendance, has only made the acquaintance of a handful in order to help earn herself and Sherlock an invitation. These days they are William Vernet and his wife Sylvia, speculators looking to buy cattle for the eastern markets. On the advice of some of Sherlock’s sources, they’ve wormed their way in, picking out the cattle rustlers, working undercover amongst the cattlemen themselves.

Sherlock looks the part in his black broadcloth suit, curls smoothed back. Irene sees more than a few women notice them as they walk in and stands a little closer to his side, a subtle message for them to back off. She’s wearing a new dress herself, one that Sherlock had bought for her in Rapid City as they worked their way west from Portland. Its red colour sets off her dark hair, so that she and Sherlock make a handsome couple for the public eye.

Tonight, they’re mostly observing the big names in the area, studying them for tells and possibilities. The day after tomorrow, they’ll begin travelling, ostensibly studying the herds and considering purchases, really studying the cowhands to see if they’ll give anything away that their bosses concealed. While Sherlock’s on the range, Irene will stay with the ranchers’ wives, working from the inside and presenting the façade of a good wife. It shouldn’t be too difficult – ever since she joined up with Sherlock she’s been wearing this mask, except for in Portland, but everything was different in Portland

“How long have you known each other?” one of the women, Mrs McCrae, asks Irene as they sit, watching the dancers on the floor, Sherlock deep in conversation with some of the men, carefully probing about the cattle rustling situation.

Irene smiles, watching him. “Fourteen years. We met in New York and things just went from there. It was all very slow for a long time. I was surprised when he asked me, but it’s been wonderful.” It’s vague enough that it’s not technically a lie, it just omits most things, but Mrs McCrae doesn’t seem to notice, instead gushes on about New York. Irene largely tunes out, smiling and nodding in what she hopes are the right places, based on key words that she manages to pick out, the occasional remark thrown in for effect.

Sherlock rescues her after about half an hour, taking her hand and wheeling her out onto the floor. He’s a surprisingly skilled dancer, a little better than she is, and she finds herself trying to keep up with him. It’s a fast dance, which perfectly suits them, and he grins at her. It’s incongruous with how he’s behaved recently, so much so that she’s briefly taken aback before she, too, grins.

“What’s made you so happy?” she asks, careful so that nobody else can hear them.

“Breakthrough on the case. It shouldn’t take as long as expected.”

The dance segues into a waltz, and Irene almost expects Sherlock to let her go, sending her back to her seat. Instead, he repositions his hands, pulling her closer. “Have to keep up appearances,” he murmurs, the weight of his hand heavy on her waist. Her mouth goes dry, looking up at him, his face seeming carved from marble in its pale perfection, emphasised by the black of his clothes and hair. He smiles down at her, as if he doesn’t know that they are being scrutinised, and presses his lips to hers, soft, gentle, but enough that her heart swells nonetheless and she can’t speak. “That’ll give them all something to talk about.”

“They’ll be talking for a long time in that case.” To emphasis her point, heart racing, she takes her hand from his and placing that hand on the back of his neck, lowers his head and kisses him. It’s soft, quick, and yet lingers on her lips for the rest of the night so while he sleeps beside her, she lies awake, remembering it, and savouring the moment. No matter that it was all for show, something to distract the locals and obscure their true reason for being here just a little bit more.


	11. Contemplation and Recovery

A glimpse of light, faint shadows. People? Animals? Random objects arranged for some purpose unknown so that he can’t figure out who he is or where he is or why there’s so much pain through his body, dull and throbbing, deep in his chest and he can’t ignore it.

Is this what heart failure feels like? Is he dying?

He can’t bring himself to care, can’t seem to hold any thought longer than a fleeting moment.

Death might be a relief.

* * *

 

Sherlock’s eyes move sluggishly, lids only open a crack. Irene knows that he can’t see her, very much doubts that he can even hear her so out of it does he seem. She talks to him anyway, soft, words low murmurs in his ear, reminding him of some of the highlights of their time away, the moments that shone when everything seemed normal, as if it could be all right. There weren’t many such moments, but those that there were were beautiful. She tells him of dancing down the street to violin music in Los Angeles in January, his fingertips down her bare arms when she was considering dresses for the Cattleman’s Ball in Boise, his moment of philosophising watching the trees sway along the Gulf in Florida, the night he played the part of a smitten lover in a cantina on the Mexican border, voice curving around Spanish songs which she couldn’t translate then and still can’t work out now. So few beautiful moments, yet they were there nonetheless, and she reminds him of them now, as if they can pull him from this delirium.

John watches her, watches the tears to which she is oblivious leak from her eyes, and for the first time feels sympathy for her. Sympathy for the depth of her emotions toward Sherlock, feelings and sentiments which he doubts can ever be fully realised, whether Sherlock lives or dies. She loves him, and John doesn’t even think she realises that. The realisation sends him reeling, and he needs to step outside for some air.

It’s been there, really, all along, John supposes, he just never noticed or considered it before, the vaguest possibility of such strong sentiment seeming foreign. It’s been there even before the first time John met Irene, back in 1882 when Sherlock first brought him to San Pedro. He should have seen it then, should have seen it the moment she slapped him across the face and then kissed him, Sherlock wiping the kiss away as soon as she pulled away. She’s been desperately in love with Sherlock for years, so no wonder she’s so torn up over him being so injured. The ties between them run far deeper than the ties of two who have just spent years running together, and bind them far tighter. He may not be a Holmes, but it’s not that difficult a deduction now, with things the way that they are.

(Yet, in saying that, he, too, very much doubts whether Sherlock knows.)

* * *

 

It’s noon when Mycroft appears, black suit dusty and horse worn out. He doesn’t rush into the house, instead stables his horse and uses the walk from the livery stable to compose himself. Lestrade watches him do it, and so can see the tension which has him strung taut in spite of his best attempts to pretend that he isn’t. It would be comical, if he wasn’t here thanks to something so serious.

Irene doesn’t even look up when Mycroft walks into the sick room, having brushed off a good portion of the dust. He certainly registers her presence, but doesn’t comment on it. There’ll be time enough for that later, preferably out of John’s hearing.

“The fever seems to have stopped rising,” John says, without looking up. “Hello, Mycroft. Long time no see.”

Mycroft doesn't speak, doesn’t even recognise the slight sting in John’s voice for what it is, and his face is pale when John looks up at him, the worry shining through his eyes, and now John’s voice softens. "It's a good sign, Mycroft. Means the fever might soon break."

"And if it doesn't?" There's no trace of hesitation or concern in his voice, but John notices that he still hasn't taken his eyes off Sherlock's face.

"Then we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

A nod, and Mycroft sits on the edge of the bed, careful not to jostle Sherlock and lightly placing his fingers on top of his brother's. (A flash of a child so weak and frail in bed, small fingers resting just as still under his, only fleeting, so that it is juxtaposed with the presence and Mycroft feels the prickles of sweat at the back of his neck, stomach roiling in spite of the indifference which he has tried to cultivate on his ride here from Prescott.)

"Is he . . . Is he in any pain?" The question is simple, and yet it seems so terribly important, the answer feeling like vital information to possess.

The morphine is keeping him comfortable. That's all we can hope for." It’s not a lie. Nor is it the full truth, and the silence that falls weighs heavy on their shoulders.

* * *

 

"Tell me what happened," Mycroft says softly, not looking at Irene and still watching his brother's face for any sign of consciousness. Darkness has fallen, and John is brewing coffee, getting ready for another night of waiting.

At his voice, Irene remembers his sending them to Portland, and the nights of Sherlock lying sleepless on the bed smelling incongruously of gunpowder and disinfectant. She shakes it from her mind and refuses to even look at Mycroft. His fault that they ended up out there at the time of the outbreak. Perhaps things would be better if they'd worked out the slave-trading enterprise under their own steam. It's a horribly selfish thought.

"We prepared ourselves in Tucson, then struck out for the east. In those canyons not too far from Socorro, though I suppose they're far enough, we suspected that Sebastian Moran had a base that he was working out of, rustling, raiding, blaming it on rogue Indians. He was the last piece, the second in command to Moriarty himself, and he took Sherlock in Socorro. Of course, Billy Wiggins and I knew who had him, and Wiggins is an excellent tracker, so we wormed our way in, got to know the area, and broke him out. Just in time too." Her voice cracks, but she goes on, adding in the piece which she hasn’t even told John, because she knows Mycroft will deduce that she’s holding something back. In spite of her attempts to sound unconcerned, her voice cracks now as she speaks. "They were just getting ready to skin him."

"Any survivors of your raid?"

"Couldn't be many. We set off a blast in a different part of their maze of caves, drew them away from where Sherlock was, and then set off a second blast. Anyone else we came across we shot."

"And Moran himself?"

"He was caught in the second blast. I waited until he was between the two. He's trapped in those tunnels, and that's if he's still alive." The hope that he’s dead is one of the few things that she has to cling to now.

"Good." Silence, that stretches on for long minutes, until he speaks again. "They're still looking for you two in San Francisco. The Vernet couple. There's very little that I can do, but I suggest neither of you go back there. I've managed to get the Texan warrants waived, however.” And the punchline, delivered with his eyes raised at last, looking into hers, resolute and hardened, so that his next words almost constitute a threat. “Just don't get my brother into trouble again."

"It was his own decision." Her voice doesn’t quaver, not this time, and she refuses to break his gaze.

"And perhaps I could have talked him out of it if you had not been involved."

* * *

 

Sometime in the middle of that night, with candles lit to burn the darkness from the room and quiet murmurs of reassurance, amidst a haze of low, pained whimpers, Sherlock’s fever breaks. And for the first time since this whole thing began, Irene thinks that maybe, just maybe, everything will be all right.

   


	12. New Mexico/Arizona, June 1885

That night in Boise when they played husband and wife, dancing like lovers with violin music in the background, seems so long ago now, as if it belongs to a whole other lifetime in another world. In truth, it is only nine months in the past. One of last year’s adventures, when there was the possibility that maybe, just maybe, everything could be solved and worked out reasonably quickly.

Now, as she travels across country in a broken down old wagon, enfolded around Sherlock’s body as if that will be enough to keep him safe, to save him from the savage wounds inflicted in the midst of hatred, Irene knows deep down that it could never have worked out so easily for them. Of course there were terrible complications, and of course Sherlock was captured, tortured, body bearing knife wounds that could very well kill him. (She hates herself, sometimes, for thinking that he should have died back in that cave. At last it would have spared him from all of this suffering.)

Billy Wiggins does his best, managing the two-horse team as well as he can while also driving them as fast as he can across the rough ground. He doesn’t want to lose the wagon, because what would they do then even though it’s not much of a wagon now, but nor does he want to lose time – and possibly Sherlock’s life – by travelling slowly. He almost wishes that he were back in Tucson in an opium-induced haze and had never decided to help Sherlock and Irene. He knows it’s selfish of him, and really, he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to leave the entire rescue on Irene’s shoulders, but it would be so much easier if he had only stayed behind. (What he wouldn’t give now to have never heard of any of this affair.)

When night falls, they don’t disturb Sherlock from the back of the wagon, decide against moving him when it’s not absolutely necessary. He’s restless, weak, hallucinating in the midst of his fever dreams. They’ve run out of the carbolic acid for cleaning his wounds, spent the last of it that first night when they had hid in case of discovery. So instead Irene uses iodine, of which she has a little left, and tries to make do though her hands are shaking and to say that she’s worried would be an understatement. Their stock of linen for bandaging is running low too, and all she can do is try to make it last as long as she can.

Irene doesn’t sleep, not properly anyway, though she gets the impression that she dozes off several times, none of them for very long. She bathes Sherlock’s head with water that they’ve taken from a river earlier in the day, cards through his curls and squeezes his fingers and soothes his murmurings with murmured words of her own, promising to bring him to John, promising that John will save him, promising that Moriarty’s network is destroyed. Anything to get him to settle and rest, anything to distract him from his pain. There’s only a small amount of laudanum left in the bottle, and when morning comes she laces a cup of water with half of it, propping up his head and trickling the water into his mouth, watching as he swallows it. It doesn’t take the pain away, not enough at least, but she can’t risk giving him any more otherwise they won’t have enough for later. And there’s still at least another day’s travel before they reach San Pedro. 

* * *

They almost hadn’t reached the cave where Sherlock was held in time. Sebastian Moran was sadistic in his actions – when they managed to fight their way in, Sherlock was stretched between two posts, wearing only his trousers, and an old Mexican man was just starting to skin him.

Irene shot the Mexican, knowing it would bring more men but also knowing that it would be too slow to sneak in and simply stab him. Sherlock couldn’t hold on that long, she could see the waxiness in his face even at that distance. Wiggins stayed just outside of this room, on guard with guns ready to cut down any one who appeared.

It was only when Irene reached Sherlock, knife ready to cut him free, that she saw that he was feverish and daze, unaware of what so easily could have been done to him. She cut his legs free first, then his arms, and any strength that he had left drained out of him, eyes flickering closed as he slid to the ground. She cursed to herself and replaced the knife in its sheath, lifting him as carefully as she could, one arm under his arms, the other around his waist. His head lolled to the side, and for the first of what would be many times in the coming days and weeks, it struck her that he could so easily die. 

* * *

It isn’t long before the wagon breaks down, the axle falling off as they travel over rocky ground. Eventually, they manage to get going again, though they have to leave the wagon behind, Billy riding one horse, Sherlock propped up in front of Irene on the other. In this fashion, they make their way slowly westward, resting the horses every now and then while Irene checks over Sherlock’s wounds, though now they travel through the night as well as the day, the cool air helping them to go a little faster though it’s a little harder to see the ground.

Irene’s arms cramp during the long ride, one wrapped around Sherlock’s waist to keep him in the saddle and the other hand keeping hold of the reins, but she manages to ignore the pain and put it behind her. What’s more important is to get Sherlock to San Pedro. Anything else can wait until after that.


	13. After the Storm

By morning, Sherlock’s temperature is not quite back to normal, but it’s not too far off it. John smiles to himself, watching Irene battle her exhaustion and finally fall asleep with her head resting beside Sherlock’s. Mycroft doesn’t comment – probably for the best – but John can see the cogs turning in his mind and recognises the conclusion that he comes to, the same conclusion which struck him so forcefully the day before. It makes him wonder how little time the elder Holmes has spent around the two of them, if he’s even better than Sherlock yet only identifies the sentiment on Irene’s part now.

The worry leaches out of John too now, and he finds himself light-headed. When was the last time he slept? He’s been running on adrenaline and coffee for days now, and the worry which stirred it on is mostly gone. Oh Sherlock’s a long way from being back to himself now, the wounds a long way from healed though they have certainly improved, but the danger has passed. And noting that, Mycroft convinces the doctor to take to his bed, just for a little time, a rest to revive himself in the lull.

Mycroft is the only one who stays (Wiggins having quietly slipped out of town), alert and concerned, holding the fort for now. It’s the least he can do. He knows he couldn’t have intervened in those canyons, recognises the wisdom in not sending for him the moment that Sherlock was captured, but it stings, too, that he could do nothing to help his brother. Wiggins and Adler got him out, helped John to save him, and what contribution did he himself make to it? Nothing, except to appear when the crisis is almost over. And so he stays, sitting by his brother’s side and carding through his curls, as if he were a child again.

And, God, but he could have lost this. Could have lost the little brother who’s annoyed him and frustrated him and terrified him by parts since the day he was born. How could he ever tell their parents that their son was dead? He’s done it for others, composed telegrams to mothers bereft of sons and newly-made widows and sisters waiting patiently for brothers to come home who never would. It was never in his job description, but he’s done it anyway, on the part of his colleagues left injured or dead. But he could never do it to his own family, yet he came so close to it. And it burns him now, as he watches his brother sleep, alive when by all accounts he should be dead, be it from the wounds or the infection.

But he’s alive, and in this present that’s all that matters.

* * *

 

It’s two days before Sherlock is back to himself enough to wonder what happened, how he could have lost so many days. Irene is the one to tell him about his torture, a sanitised version which leaves out the almost-skinning. It’s so exhausting simply listening without wholly remembering that Sherlock passes out again, sleeping for an hour before waking to the news that Mrs Hudson is finally home from her trip. She half-berates him for not being careful enough – saving the rest of her lecture for later - and hugs him, mindful of the injuries which still ache. He doesn’t complain that she squeezes him a little tight and hurts him anyway, deciding that after the last two years she’s allowed that much at least.

Irene takes possession of the Comique again, settling into it as if she’d never left, though she still spends as much time as she can with Sherlock, which is actually quite a lot. Sherlock doesn’t object to that either, grateful for her presence because he’s come to rely on her. She’s seen him through so much, from those long weeks in New York when he was re-gaining his strength after being attacked to this latest sickness, and though sentiment is something from which he has attempted to distance himself, this he indulges in, because deep down he knows that everything would have been so much more difficult without her.

In truth, he doesn’t remember much of that week or so after being rescued (and rescued is such a horrible word to use, conjuring images of damsels in distress, but his mind is still at a loss as to what else to call it), or even much of the torture beforehand. Mostly it’s just the pain. The pain managed to consume everything, though he knows he didn’t give himself away to Moran, knows that with a deep-seated conviction in his chest. Then there was the exhaustion, their refusal to let him sleep or even pass that, so that by the time Irene got to him he was delirious from lack of sleep as much as the pain and the fever. He has an impression of her face, worried yet fierce as she cut him free, and her voice soothing him as they were rocked by the wagon in their escape, her hands tending his wounds, gentle and firm, her chest along his back as she sat behind him on the horse to keep him steady as Wiggins led them west to John. They’re fleeting impressions, mostly, glimpses into that great escape. She told him stories and though he wouldn’t usually care about them, they held what attention he had been able to summon, distracted him from the pain. The most important thing was that she was there, and she helped to pull him through. So he doesn’t mind that she comes to visit now while he’s recovering. He is instead thankful for her.

* * *

 

The saloons are flooded with people, though the town itself is quiet, bathed in shades of amber and gold as the sun moves inevitably towards the horizon. It’s been weeks since Irene and Wiggins rescued him from the hands of Sebastian Moran and his men, yet Sherlock is still weak and prone to bouts of exhaustion, chest aching if he moves wrong and fingers almost healed. He sits now on the porch, in a battered old rocking chair, swigging from a jug of whiskey, shirt far too loose (it is – after all – from before his time away) and coat draped around his shoulders. (He won’t admit to being cold, refuses to, in fact, but there’s a chill in his bones which he can’t seem to quite shake.) This is his town, loath though he was for so long to admit it, and he missed it while he was gone, just a little. (Quite a lot, but only Irene has guessed at that.)

Most of the time, it feels as if he’s never left, as if the whole Moriarty thing simply never happened, though he and Irene both have the scars to show that it did. Then a flash of memory will shoot through him and it will all come rushing back, fresh and new, wounds which haven’t yet sealed, unlike the ones in his chest. Those moments he forces back into his mind, locked into a trunk which he doubts if he’ll ever intentionally open. Some things are best forgotten.

Irene appears out of the post office, likely after receiving some telegram or other which she won’t reply to. She glances up to where he knows that she knows he’ll be sitting, so he tips his hat to her. Even from this distance, he can feel her smile, and it makes his lips quirk when she waves back before going into the Comique. For one evening, at least, everything is all right, and for once that satisfies him.


End file.
